Natural dyes from mortiño (vaccinium floribundum) as sensitizers in solar cells

Miguel A. Taco-Ugsha; Cristian P. Santacruz; Patricio J. Espinoza-Montero

doi:10.3390/en13040785

Natural dyes from mortiño (vaccinium floribundum) as sensitizers in solar cells

Miguel A. Taco-Ugsha, Cristian P. Santacruz^*, Patricio J. Espinoza-Montero

^*Corresponding author for this work

Faculty of Exact and Natural Sciences

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

7 Scopus citations

Abstract

Photovoltaic energy presents environmental advantages; however, these advantages are limited by the cost of manufacturing solar cells and in many cases, scarce or dangerous materials are incorporated. Therefore, the use of natural dyes from mortiño (Vaccinium floribundum) as sensitizers in solar cells is proposed. The dyes were extracted by maceration in acidified methanol (HCl, citric acid and trifluoroacetic acid TFA) and were characterized by High-Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC), Thin-Layer Chromatography (TLC) and spectrometric methods (UV-Vis, IR and MS-MALDI). The construction and characterization of cells were in standard conditions. The study confirms that pigments in mortiño are flavonoids of the anthocyanidin group as: cyanidin-3-galactoside, and cyanidin-3-arabinoside. The efficiency of solar cells was between 0.18-0.26%; the extraction with TFA in methanol leads to the best performance. Although they have low power conversion efficiency, mortiño dyes could be an alternative to artificial sensitizers for solar cell technologies because they are harmless and abundant substances.

Original language	English
Article number	785
Journal	Energies
Volume	13
Issue number	4
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.3390/en13040785
State	Published - 11 Feb 2020

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 by the authors.

Funding

Funding: This research was funded by EPN for funding through the PIMI 14-08 research project.

Funders	Funder number
Escuela Politécnica Nacional

Keywords

Anthocyanins
Dye
Efficiency
Mortiño
Sensitizer
Solar cells

UN SDGs

This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

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10.3390/en13040785

Cite this

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title = "Natural dyes from morti{\~n}o (vaccinium floribundum) as sensitizers in solar cells",

abstract = "Photovoltaic energy presents environmental advantages; however, these advantages are limited by the cost of manufacturing solar cells and in many cases, scarce or dangerous materials are incorporated. Therefore, the use of natural dyes from morti{\~n}o (Vaccinium floribundum) as sensitizers in solar cells is proposed. The dyes were extracted by maceration in acidified methanol (HCl, citric acid and trifluoroacetic acid TFA) and were characterized by High-Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC), Thin-Layer Chromatography (TLC) and spectrometric methods (UV-Vis, IR and MS-MALDI). The construction and characterization of cells were in standard conditions. The study confirms that pigments in morti{\~n}o are flavonoids of the anthocyanidin group as: cyanidin-3-galactoside, and cyanidin-3-arabinoside. The efficiency of solar cells was between 0.18-0.26%; the extraction with TFA in methanol leads to the best performance. Although they have low power conversion efficiency, morti{\~n}o dyes could be an alternative to artificial sensitizers for solar cell technologies because they are harmless and abundant substances.",

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AU - Taco-Ugsha, Miguel A.

AU - Santacruz, Cristian P.

AU - Espinoza-Montero, Patricio J.

PY - 2020/2/11

Y1 - 2020/2/11

N2 - Photovoltaic energy presents environmental advantages; however, these advantages are limited by the cost of manufacturing solar cells and in many cases, scarce or dangerous materials are incorporated. Therefore, the use of natural dyes from mortiño (Vaccinium floribundum) as sensitizers in solar cells is proposed. The dyes were extracted by maceration in acidified methanol (HCl, citric acid and trifluoroacetic acid TFA) and were characterized by High-Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC), Thin-Layer Chromatography (TLC) and spectrometric methods (UV-Vis, IR and MS-MALDI). The construction and characterization of cells were in standard conditions. The study confirms that pigments in mortiño are flavonoids of the anthocyanidin group as: cyanidin-3-galactoside, and cyanidin-3-arabinoside. The efficiency of solar cells was between 0.18-0.26%; the extraction with TFA in methanol leads to the best performance. Although they have low power conversion efficiency, mortiño dyes could be an alternative to artificial sensitizers for solar cell technologies because they are harmless and abundant substances.

AB - Photovoltaic energy presents environmental advantages; however, these advantages are limited by the cost of manufacturing solar cells and in many cases, scarce or dangerous materials are incorporated. Therefore, the use of natural dyes from mortiño (Vaccinium floribundum) as sensitizers in solar cells is proposed. The dyes were extracted by maceration in acidified methanol (HCl, citric acid and trifluoroacetic acid TFA) and were characterized by High-Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC), Thin-Layer Chromatography (TLC) and spectrometric methods (UV-Vis, IR and MS-MALDI). The construction and characterization of cells were in standard conditions. The study confirms that pigments in mortiño are flavonoids of the anthocyanidin group as: cyanidin-3-galactoside, and cyanidin-3-arabinoside. The efficiency of solar cells was between 0.18-0.26%; the extraction with TFA in methanol leads to the best performance. Although they have low power conversion efficiency, mortiño dyes could be an alternative to artificial sensitizers for solar cell technologies because they are harmless and abundant substances.

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KW - Efficiency

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KW - Sensitizer

KW - Solar cells

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Natural dyes from mortiño (vaccinium floribundum) as sensitizers in solar cells

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Funding

Keywords

UN SDGs

Access to Document

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